It is not uncommon for contemporary electronic computing devices, such as desktop computers, laptop or notebook computers, portable digital assistants (PDAs), two-way paging devices, mobile telephones, and the like, to host a personal information manager (PIM) software application. A PIM software application is a computer program which allow a user to maintain and organize various types of personal information. PIM software applications often incorporate a contacts database for storing and organizing contact information. The contacts database, which may be referred to as a “contact manager” or “address book”, typically contains one record for each personal or business contact whose information is being maintained. Each record may have such data fields as first name, last name, company name, department, address, city, state or province, country, zip or postal code, email address, and multiple telephone numbers (home, work, mobile and facsimile for example). A contacts database may alternatively be a standalone application that is not part of a PIM software application.
It is possible for a contacts database to contain one or more records with homophone names. A homophone name is a name that is pronounced like another contact's name but represents a different person. A homophone name may be spelled the same as, or differently from, a desired contact name. For example, the names “John Smith”, “Jon Smith”, and “John Smythe” (of three different individuals) are each homophones of the name “John Smith” (of a fourth individual).
A conventional automatic voice recognition (VR) engine, as may be used in a speaker-independent voice-activated dialing (SI-VAD) system for example, may address the problem of homophone names in an associated contacts database by requesting further information to resolve an ambiguity, i.e., to “disambiguate” an uttered name and thereby identify the desired person. For example, the user may be informed via aural prompts that the system has more than one person with the name “John Smith”. The system may proceed to state (via a text-to-speech capability) the names and respective telephone numbers of the persons, and may ask the user to select one of the persons (e.g., through touch tone key selection). Upon identification of the appropriate person in this manner, a telephone number associated with the identified person may be automatically dialed. Disadvantageously, undesirable delay may be introduced when a user is required to not only initially utter a desired contact name, but to wait for and respond to one or more prompts for further input for use in disambiguating the name. A solution which obviates or mitigates this disadvantage would be desirable.